Thursday was to have been a big day in the US Congress in the battle for who controls the internet, and how we would be protected from internet pirates. A marathon debate on Thursday in the US House of Representatives on the Stop Online Piracy Act degraded from discussing how to protect America from internet pirates to name calling and childish fighting between members of Congress.
A tweet on the internet derails the talks
Ironically a debate on how to control the internet would fall apart because of one persons objections to an internet tweet.
Iowa Republican Steve King tweeted: "We are debating the Stop Online Piracy Act and Shiela Jackson has so bored me that I'm killing time by surfing the Internet."
The tweet was aimed at Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee, named the "meanest" in Congress by the Washingtonian magazine. Jackson Lee didn't take kindly to being called boring.
What started out as a debate on internet piracy, ended up as a debate on who should apologize for name calling.
Bombarded by acronyms and plans
Pirate websites illegally offer music, movies, and other intellectual property that they do not own to internet surfers. Many of the pirate websites are located outside the United States where US courts and law enforcement can not reach them. So battle ground is how to block the pirate websites.
We have been bombarded by the acronyms and plans for months. The Protect IP Act (S.968) as it is known in the US Senate, and Stop Online Piracy Act, also known simply as SOPA, (H.R.3261) as it has been proposed in the US House, both hope to tackle internet piracy.
Internet service providers and portals have come out against many of the laws as "breaking the internet." The argument being made is that SOPA or Protect IP could suppress free speech by blocking Websites accused of copyright infringement without due process.
We have waited for some answers for months. The proposed SOPA legislation leaves many questions to be answered on the technical aspects of how SOPA would work. No one discussed how the law would actually work on Thursday. But Congress did spend some time over how the word "offensive" violated House rules.
Silly Congress.
We will be following the fight for intenet freedom in the weeks ahead. To stay informed or to share your Technology News, follow Tom Peracchio @Gu42 on Twitter or Guru42 on Facebook.
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